Our Sat dish allows us to get a couple more Satellites, so tons of channels. Give my Godly beliefs this works great as we have about 9 church type channels. Anyway before this gets off track, one of them (the churchy ones) is called JCTV, and has heps of extreme sports shows on it. Lots of surfing, base jumping, motorbiking, mountain biking, etc. I don't see many of them but enjoy it when I do.

I find cricket on TV incredibly boring... and that is a sport I used to play as well (I found it pretty boring to play as well to be honest, and only played because of peer pressure). Triathlon is something else that I find pretty boring to watch and it seems to get a lot of coverage, as does golf.

The reason mass media doesnt show small sports like DH racing or other special interest material is because only a small number of people are interested in it, and those people get their information from the internet.

You cant talk about content in mass media without taking account of the alternative providers of that content or the reason that mass media exists - to sell advertising. News and current affairs is no different. If you could ever be bothered watching the news on free to air TV you'll notice that most of the 'stories' are infotainment, celebrity crap or overboiled rhetoric - popular stuff that is easy for people to watch without having to do any thinking. You don't want people thinking, you just want them sitting there, minds blank, when the ads come on. People that actually like news get if off the net. Just like people that like DH racing.

Velocipedestrian wrote:I am writing a paper at polytech on the way "extreme" or fringe sports are treated in the mainstream media.I will be covering radio, newspapers, and TVNZ & TV3 news, not sky channels or any specific interest media.

Your thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.

Topics so far include:MTB World Champs in Rotorua, and why Trials got little to no coverage on the telly.Sarah Walker winning gold medals and getting a mention but no footage.Jossi Wells cleaning up in the X-Games, minimal coverage.

Any sensible opinions useful, some ranting tolerated.

Thanks.

Sport and the Media are in a marriage - they both need each other for money. Ad space[media] and sponsor exposure[sport].

are you familiar with the term MediaSport? Journal searches on it will give you a good understanding of the interconnection between media and sport 'backscratching".

Sports in Society. by J.J Coakley is very good and will give you huge insight to why mainstream sport is presented through media. Especially the theories linked to it.

The commercialisation of Sport. by D. L Andrews. esp chapter 1 - sport in the late capitalist movement.Talks about evolution of mediasport from after WW2 through to Rupert murdoch and media control over sport.

[regarding broadcasting] - T.V want revenue, ads give revenue. Media will pay for broadcast rights to certain sports with target customer bases where the big dollars are. Hence the reason sports like Golf are broadcast - even though the viewership is low, the advertisers have a wealthier audience to pitch at.Fringe sport end up having to use sponsorship money to pay for broadcasting time if they want coverage. Obviously this is not easy.I would say a very good PR machine who is willing to work hard with media, could make a dent in the amount of media coverage, but it would take some effort over a long time.

Coverage in news items is more to do with the Media business needing sport for ratings, they are basically complying to the influence of money and the masses. Coverage of sport attracts viewers therefore advertising.

Some broadcast content comes down to the media company, some comes down to the masses. For example: Crowd Goes Wild due to its Sky ESPN connection, will show a fairly good whack of US sport not necessarily shown on NZ TV. Which is a shame because half an hour is heaps of time to throw fringe sports.

For sport to be attractive to the masses it often has to have:

Heroes and idols- to identify with. One of the reasons the UCI dropped the aerobars from roadbikes was because they felt the public wouldn't be able to identify with their heroes so much...fringe sports don't have the wide ranging heroes of commercial value [yet]

uncertainty - hence the salary caps in some sports controlled by Murdoch empire. If we knew who was going to cream it, we wouldn't necessarily watch - especially team sport. There has to be suspense and climax and a story behind the 'actors' - sucks in the female viewers and therefore more viewers, because men will watch anything. That's why in the olympics - athlete profiles and rise from the ashes stories are milked. If these stories suck in the viewers - media can charge $squillions more per ad.

Fringe sports are becoming far more popular these days. They offer a 'danger' and 'informality', that modern sports have stuffed up by taking the essence of the sport away and turned it into another 'rule fest' - which is like the rest of our lives.

Good stuff Cruiser, will be hunting down those books + MediaSport search hint.

Everyone seems to be fixating a bit on DH, while this is useful, I tend to agree with Trails assertion that any clock-watching sport gets boring fast unless you are really into it.One of my focus points will be Sarah Walker - she is getting increased profile via joining Ulmer + Evers-Swindells on the meat ads, and BMX racing is very easy to film (much easier than DH)has the pack start / finish of road racing, plus jumps and crashes to make it more interesting for lay viewers, and is even an Olympic sport! unlike one of my other topics - Individual Pursuit [poor Ali Shanks] which was given huge coverage when Ulmer destroyed that world record at Olympics.

BMX seems to fit most of the criteria people have listed for good watchability, and NZ has a champion in the sport, where's the coverage?

Sarah's initial profile boost was due to a combination of WorldChamp status in an Olympic event, and her possibilities of olympic success.

Her media 'package' has helped her profile and gain sponsorship. Look at the other riders who are Champs in an olympic sport.Her exposure is moreso with being an olympian than the actual sport. Olympic medals matter, regardless of the sport. But once the olympic buzz goes away, what happens?

Look at who rides BMX and how much of a useful market they are to advertisers...

If you answer...Bike industries would advertise to BMXers, do these industries have the money to sway Media.

Compare it to Golf or yachting audience...boring as hell to watch, but golf is played by people with money and yachting is too. Yachting is also considered important to New Zealanders. Look up SPARC's strategic plan...you'll see the list of sports important to Kiwis. They'll relate to media coverage...almost (cycling is new). I think cycling will gain more coverage over time, it's growing hugely. Needs more PR.

Media will use technology to manufacture the coverage of sport to make it more interactive, hence sucking in more viewers and dollars. But they are strategic in what sports they will develop technological coverage for. For example in yachting you've got the Virtual reality trackers, expert commentators, on board communication and 3D views. Car Racing has the in-car cameras, Stats and displays etc. Rugby, cricket, tennis etc has replays and third umpires, it's all done to create 'experts' out of the audience who will identify and attach themselves to these sports. It could easily be done with any sport, and they would if the smell of money came their way.

there's much more to it than the actual sport. Clock watching does kill it a bit, hence the 4X AND slalom formats introduced in the winter olympics. But if the sport is worth money, the media will concoct an experience worth watching.

Trail wrote:I find cricket on TV incredibly boring... and that is a sport I used to play as well (I found it pretty boring to play as well to be honest, and only played because of peer pressure). Triathlon is something else that I find pretty boring to watch and it seems to get a lot of coverage, as does golf.

A good commentary makes a huge difference to TV sport. The Liggett/Sherwin combination adds heaps to a cycle race. The Channel 9 cricket commentary team led by Ritchie Bendover is also a winner. That said, NOTHING can make golf watchable for me.